THIRD CLASS - LANDSCAPE 1. INTRODUCTION Today we are going to look at two paintings by the French artist, Claude Monet, who was one of the leading members of the Impressionists. Does anyone remember my mentioning his name in an earlier class? The term Impressionism was coined by a critic upon viewing a painting of Monet's entitled, Impression: Sunrise (l872). The Impressionists were bored with the rules and standard of the French Academy. Instead of historic subjects, romantic views, and idealized portraits, they tried to paint exactly what they saw--an even greater naturalism. They wanted to capture the moment, including the reflections of light on the surface of objects. They sought to paint visual sensations--what the eye sees at a glance-- not what the brain knows or what style or conventions dictate. In order to capture the changing effects of light on a subject, where do you suppose Monet usually did his painting, in the studio or outside? Outside! Unlike earlier artists who sketched outside but then returned to the studio to paint the finished product, Monet and other Impressionists painted their entire canvases out-of-doors. This type of painting done directly from nature is called plein-air (open air) painting. Since Monet was most interested in capturing natural light, what type of painting do you think appealed to him the most, i.e., portrait, landscape, still life, or narrative painting? Landscape Two inventions in the second half of the l9th century made it easier for artists to paint finished oil paintings out-of-doors. Can anyone guess what they might have been?

The portable easel and new oil paints in tubes with screwable caps. Now let's focus on two painting by Monet. II. EYE EXERCISES Since we are stressing how the eye sees in this class, it's a good idea to warm up our eyes with these exercises today. III. LANDSCAPE PAINTING A. Garden at Sainte-Adresse (also called Terrace at Sainte-Adresse)

Artist - Claude Monet - French (l840-l926) Year Painted - l867 Medium - oil on canvas Props - poster of painting, large sheet of acetate paper to place over poster, indelible marker. Activities - Tracing for structure

BACKGROUND INFORMATION (for the teacher) Claude Monet was born in Paris on November l4, l840. His father was a wholesale grocer. Financial problems forced the family to move to Le Havre in the north of France when Monet was five. As a child, Monet disliked school, but loved to draw. He was particularly fascinated by the sea and the reflections of light on water. By the time he was a teenager, the artist was earning money as a caricaturist. His parents encouraged his precocious talent. Monet struck up a friendship with another painter in Le Havre, Boudin, who would become his first real teacher. Boudin taught Monet to paint what he saw and influenced him to paint in the open-air as a way to retain the freshness of a sketch in a finished work. This idea was to become one of the hallmarks of Impressionist painting. Monet went to Paris in l859 but studied at the Academie Suisse rather than at the more traditional Ecole des Beaux-Arts. A year later he was drafted into the French army and served in Algeria. He was fascinated with the quality of light in North Africa

and spent more and more time thinking about how to capture the effects of natural light on objects. In l862 Monet was back in Paris and entered the studio of Gleyre where he met Renoir, Sisley and Bazille. They became his friends and joined Monet in painting out-of-doors. In l865 Monet had two seascapes accepted by the Salon, but for the most part his works were considered too rough, too sketchy and unfinished to be saleable. Monet often went hungry, lacked money for art supplies, and even contemplated suicide at one point. In l870 Monet went to London to avoid the Franco-Prussian War. There he was introduced to the dealer, Durand Ruel, who bought some of his pictures. Upon his return to Paris a year later, Monet began painting the landscape at Argenteuil along the Seine River. In l874 Monet was one of the main organizers of the first Impressionist Exhibit and showed pictures in four of the seven subsequent group exhibitions. Monet was always experimenting. In l877 he made the first of his series paintings, of the railroad station at Saint Lazare. By the l890s Monet was concentrating on making numerous versions of the same scene--of grainstacks, poplars, Rouen cathedral, etc--in order to record the changing effects of light and color according to the seasons, weather and time of day. His days of poverty were over. Collectors began to buy his canvases especially in America, and in l890 he had enough money to purchase a country home in Giverny twenty miles from Paris. Monet lavished his attention on the gardens there, diverting a stream to make a pond, building a Japanese bridge, and creating a colorful garden filled with a wide variety of plant material. Monet painted many pictures of his garden including the famous canvases of water lilies. In later years, the artist was troubled by poor vision. A cataract operation restored some sight but eventually he was almost completely blind. Monet continued to paint as he could and his later works are noted for their greater abstraction. Cezanne said of his fellow artist's unsurpassed ability to record visual sensations, "Monet is only an eye, but my God what an eye!" DIALOGUE SUGGESTIONS (for classroom presentation) Show the students the poster of Garden at Sainte-Adresse and ask them what it is a picture of? A garden and water, two of Monet’s favorite subjects. Tell the students the painting's name and that it shows the Monet family property at Sainte-Adresse overlooking the English Channel in the north of France. (Point this out to students on a map.) What about the people? Are they important? Could they be the subject? No. They are not the most important thing in the painting. It's not a portrait because we can't see their faces. We can identify who they are, however. The artist's cousin Jeanne Marguerite Lecadre is standing next to an unidentified man while the artist's aunt, Mme. Lecadre, and father, Adolphe, are seated. Monet spent the summer of 1867 with his father and aunt, partly because he was without money at the time and needed their financial support.

If this is not a portrait, what type of a painting could it be then? A landscape. A picture in which a view of the land is most important. As you can imagine, landscapes and seascapes were very important to the Impressionists because they usually worked out-of-doors. Monet especially liked to paint landscapes because of his interest in reflected light. Garden at Sainte-Adresse is one of Monet's early works and is considered the first truly Impressionist painting. Let's figure out why this is true. If you were painting out-of-doors in order to capture the moment, would you paint slowly with lots of detail, or quickly with less detail? Quickly with less detail.

Monet sometimes worked only l5 minutes on a particular painting and then came back to it at the same time the next day.

What might change in fifteen minutes time? The weather The angle of the sun or the shadows. What type of brush strokes suggest this type of rapid glance?

Loose, broken brush strokes that don't smooth over or hide the texture of the paint.

Do you find certain areas of this painting that are painted more sketchily and loosely than others? Where? The flowers and water are more sketchy, just dabs of colored paint, whereas the other areas of the painting are more clear, traditional, smooth and detailed. All Monet's art will in a few years become splashes of color. What colors does Monet use most frequently in this painting? Red, blue, yellow, green and white. Are his colors bright or dull? Very bright. He has used the three primary colors--red, yellow, and blue-- unmixed with any other color. They add vivid accents that enliven the scene. Another hallmark of Impressionist art is its bright palette. Is this a formal or informal scene? It's informal, a casual gathering of Monet's family on the terrace of their home. The Impressionists favored casual scenes of everyday life. Where are we, the viewer, standing? Above the scene looking down, a bird’s eye view. Monet painted this picture from an upstairs window in the house. This elevated viewpoint flattens the picture.

How would you divide this picture into three parts? Most students would divide it horizontally--terrace, water, sky. These three almost equal horizontal zones one on top of the other also flatten the picture. Where do you find strong vertical lines? The flagpoles, standing figures, flowers, fence, and masts. What other type of lines can you find? Curved lines: chair backs, mounds of flowers, sails, parasols Monet wrote of this painting fifty years later (i.e. in l920) that "...on each side of the composition there is a pole with a flag, and that, at that time, this composition was considered very daring." This painting is the essence of Impressionism in that it captures the moment so accurately that we can determine the time of year, the time of day and the weather. What season do you think is shown here? Look at the flowers for a hint. Summer Gladioli (tall spiky red flowers at left and right) and geraniums (red flowers in center) bloom in the summer. From what direction is the sunlight coming? The upper left. By the length of the shadows at this particular location, the time of day has been determined as l0:30 am. What is the quality of light? Bright and strong, or dull and weak? Bright and strong.

The brilliance of the light reflecting off the water heightens the colors and casts strong shadows.

What clues do you find that tell us about the weather? Breezy - indicated by the flags, the smoke from the stacks of the ships, and the choppy water. Sunny - indicated by the blue sky, bright light on the terrace and the strong shadows. Why are the ladies carrying umbrellas? They're not umbrellas; they're parasols. They protect the ladies' skin from sunburn. Un-tanned skin was the fashion in the l9th century. What is the overall mood of this painting? Most students say happy, pleasant, relaxed.

What contributes to this mood? The bright colors, strong sunlight, and casual poses. Monet painted this painting at a time in his life when he was so poor he often didn't have enough money to buy decent food or art supplies. Yet none of his financial difficulties and artistic frustrations is even hinted at in this sunny work. ACTIVITY - TRACING FOR STRUCTURE Monet used a somewhat unusual compositional structure for this work--a grid of horizontals and verticals. To help students identify these lines, place a large sheet of acetate paper over the poster and have each child trace a horizontal or vertical line on the paper with a marker. Remove the acetate and observe the "skeleton" of the painting. Help students see how these lines flatten the painting and call attention to its two-dimensionality. B. The Four Trees (formerly entitled Poplars) Artist - Claude Monet Year Painted - l89l Medium - oil on canvas Props - poster of the painting; book Linnea in Monet's Garden

by Christina Bjork; paper and crayons or Craypas for each child.

Activities - Read aloud about Monet's life; sketch the same scene under changing light conditions; make a list of the characteristics of Impressionism

DIALOGUE SUGGESTIONS (for classroom presentation) What is Monet depicting in this painting? Four trees along a riverbank. That’s the title, The Four Trees.

This painting was formerly entitled Poplars after the type of tree it depicts. Can you find any other poplar trees in this picture? There is a row of yellow trees in the background. Does anyone know what the word “motif” means? The same design or subject that is repeated.

Monet painted twenty-three paintings of poplars over ten months time. A Japanese print of poplar trees may also have influenced this painting. Monet owned many Japanese prints.

Can you see any reflections? The trees are reflected in the water at the bottom of the canvas. Where do you think the artist was when he painted this scene? In a boat on the river.

Monet had a special broad-bottomed boat built with grooves to hold his canvases and easel.

What is the artist’s viewpoint? Where is Monet looking?

He is looking up at the trees and depicts only the trunks of the four trees in the foreground, unlike those in the background whose leafy tops are visible.

Tell the students that you have an interesting story about how this picture came to be. In the summer and fall of l89l Monet became fascinated with painting a row of trees along the Epte River near his house in Giverny. He heard, however, that the trees were going to be cut down by the village of Limetz for lumber. To prevent this, Monet struck a deal with a local wood merchant whereby he would purchase the trees at auction but promise to let them remain until Monet was finished painting them. Monet wanted to paint a series of pictures of these trees at different times of day and under different weather conditions. Monet believed that because light is always changing, to capture it truly, an artist must work quickly. He said that it took only seven minutes before the light left a certain leaf and moved on to the next. He would store a number of partially worked on canvases in the slots in his boat, and take out the one that matched the light conditions and time of day that existed at the moment. Monet exhibited fifteen pictures of poplars in l892. Some critics praised them for their naturalism while others hailed their abstract, decorative qualities. What is abstract about this painting? To put it another way, how has Monet simplified these trees so that they no longer look like trees? He has emphasized their verticality. They look like four vertical lines crossed by the horizontal of the riverbank. These lines create an abstract pattern or design that is decorative rather than realistic. Explain to older students that Monet has also flattened the image which adds to its sense of abstraction. If the artist were applying the rules of perspective, the reflections of the tree trunks would have been drawn diagonally to the horizon line of the riverbank, not perpendicular to it as shown here. Why does the scene appear blurry?

Certain light conditions make it hard for us to see the clear outlines of forms. The picture's blurriness emphasizes the quality of the light and the sense that Monet is capturing his first impression of color and light, not of detailed lines and shapes.

Here’s what Monet told an American artist, Lilla Cabot Perry, to explain how he painted what he saw: “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have

before you—a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblonog of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naïve impression of the scene before you.”

What time of day do you think it is? Why?

Most viewers believe this painting depicts twilight because of Monet’s use of lavender to suggest the dimming light.

Can you tell what season it is from looking at this scene? The tops of the poplar trees in the distance are ablaze with the yellow color of changing leaves in the fall.

What is naturalistic or real about this scene? The shimmering reflections on water, the trees in the distance, and the atmospheric colored light of dusk.

Monet's later art moved towards simplification and abstraction but was still based on sense perception, on what the eye sees. Are there any people in this scene?

No. From the l880s on, Monet painted few human beings in his art. Let's look carefully now at color, one of the most important elements of art for the Impressionists. List all the colors Monet has used to paint the foliage along the riverbank. Green, blue, purple, lavender, red, yellow, pink, coral. Do you see any earth tones, i.e., browns or black?

No. Monet uses yellow to indicate bright light and blue or violet for the shadows. The Impressionists for the most part did not use black to paint shadows. Instead, they discovered that shadows contain the reflected colors of the objects around them.

How did Monet apply his paint, in long, smooth strokes or in short dabs of paint? In short dabs of paint. Colors mixed on a palette are somewhat muddy, so Monet placed the pure colors side by side on the canvas and let the eye blend them. This created a livelier effect. Do you think Monet's paintings are meant to be viewed up close or at a distance? Monet's objects are more recognizable at a distance because when the viewer is up too close, all he or she sees is the distinct dabs and splashes of color and not how they blend together to form specific objects.

READ ALOUD ACTIVITY If time permits or perhaps at another period, read aloud to your students the book Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Bjork. This fun book will increase their familiarity with Monet's life and artwork. SKETCHING ACTIVITY In order to reinforce Monet's point that the color of objects changes according to the time of day, season of year, or weather conditions that prevail, plan for each child to be able to sketch and color the same scene twice. Craypas makes for especially bright colored images. Ideally the students should be able to do their finished picture outdoors and have the opportunity to observe the same scene twice, once on a sunny day for example and once on a cloudy one; or once first thing in the morning and once at noon. If this is impossible, have students sketch and color one wall of the classroom under florescent light and then under whatever natural light is available. Have them observe carefully how the colors are less bright on a cloudy or dull day or with less illumination. It was this sensitivity to light and color that the Impressionists made their own. MAKE A LIST OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPRESSIONISM Remind students that the Impressionists did not all paint alike or according to one set of rules, or even agreed-upon ideas. Yet now that we have looked at examples of five Impressionist paintings by Manet, Renoir, Cassatt and Monet, let’s see if we can try to list some of the characteristics of Impressionism. Of all the artists who exhibited together as Impressionists or painted in the “new” style, Monet best exemplified what has come to be regarded as classic Impressionist style.

1. Out of doors 2. Bright colors 3. Informal poses and subjects drawn from everyday life 4. Capture natural light 5. Broken brushwork—loose painting style 6. Importance of landscape painting 7. Flattening the image and tilting upward 8. Elevated viewpoint 9. Capture a moment in time—an impression 10. See from a distance—blur outlines 11. No black shadows—colored shadows 12. Paint on a canvas primed in white, cream or light tones, not dark ground 13. Preserve the spontaneity of the sketch in the final canvas 14. Invention of portable easel and paint in tubes 15. Influence of new art forms: Japanese prints and photography